The Game
by Ashley A
Summary: Post I Only Have Eyes For You, BTVS season 2. Buffy and Angelus have a moment. Originally written for a lyric wheel.


Title:  The Game 

Timeline: Post I Only Have Eyes For You, BTVS season Two

Pairing:  B/Aus

Rating:  Hard R for sexual situations and violence.

Disclaimer:  Nope, I own no one.  No copyright infringement is ever intended.

Dedication: To Dana for the cool idea in the first place, and to Kristi, for the awesome lyrics and the encouragement.  Two wings way up! 

Song:  I Think I'm Paranoid by Garbage, from the CD "Version 2.0"

Lyric to follow.

            The edge of night is sharp.  Sharp as a newly ground knife.  It rips at him like a desired wound; a wanted distraction.

            The woman following him is whining and whinging; he's ready to beat her with a strap, but decides to wait on that for later.  Wheel boy isn't going anywhere, and he can do what he likes to the woman, no worries or consequnces to stop him.  She actually would be a willing participant.

            "Dru," he starts, and she comes abreast of him, hand clinging to his arm like a nasty cobweb hanging from an unused door.

            "Daddy?" she answers.

            "Go home, baby.  Daddy's got some unfinished business."

            "Ohhhhhh," she moans.  "No fun.  We've only had dinner.  I want a dessert!"

            The man shakes his head, and pushes her away, hard.  She stumbles, but smiles at him.

            "Oh, fine.  Be that way.  But you'll be sorry, when miss Edith's tea party is too full for you to attend," the woman tells him.

            He flaps his hand at her, and she slinks off, singing to herself.

            "One day, I'm going to have lackeys that aren't insane," he mutters, and walks on, his stride long and direct.  The knife edge feeling intensifies.

            He keeps walking, dawn a little ways off, and reaching the corner of two familiar streets, he hesitates.

            Head held perfectly still, eyes glinting like flint in the streetlight, nostrils flared for any sensory evidence he can gather.

            "Show yourself," he says, steel in his posture and voice.

            Nothing.

            The vampire relaxes, laughs a bit even.

            "I think I'm paranoid," he whispers to himself, and shakes it off.

            From the shadows of the porch across the street, the blond woman in the red skirt watches, and follows.

*

            The dark haired, black clad vampire slinks up the driveway of 1630 Revello.  All the lights in the house, including the porch light, are off, and he feels comfortable with the lack of any kind of artificial illumination.  He sits on the porch steps, and closes his eyes.  A few moments later they snap open, and he lets a growl of frustration slip out.  

            His prey isn't home.

            Where the hell is she?  Can't be out galavanting with that so called gang of hers.  Her left her weeping and pining for her lost lover. Just the way he likes it.  Actually a little less bloody than he likes it, but that will come.  He figured she would be at home, sobbing into her girly sheets with her arms around the stuffed pig she keeps on her bed.  He never did understand the fascination humans have with toys.  The only kind of toys he likes are the leather, sharp ones.  He smiles harshly, and makes plans to introduce her to the toys he keeps on **his** bed.

            Grinning broadly, he shuts his eyelids again, savoring the image of his prey wrapped in nothing but him, some oil maybe, and some of the manacles in his chest of drawers.

            So distracted by this lovely plan, he doesn't feel the sword tip at his neck until her throaty mumur floats through the night air, shoving itself into his ears like a dagger blade.

            "Please me, tease me, then go ahead and leave me," the sentence sounds like a command, but is actually a recap of the past weeks' events.

            He laughs without looking at her, preferring to see the scene he has going on the backs of his eyelids.

            "Buffy.  Baby, I missed you.  Wanted to thank you for that gunshot wound."

            "No problem.  I can add to it if you'd like," she says, pulling the sword away from his neck, and holding it aloft, twirling it lightly in the air.  The dim incandesence from the streetlamps glimmer on it briefly.

            "Oh, I'd love for you to try," he says, a smirk on his beautiful, cold features.  He stands finally, towering over her, even when he steps down onto the sidewalk, level with her.

            His black wool coat swings with his movements, the only thing about him that seems alive.

            Intimidation is the name of the game here.

            She isn't playing.

            "Angelus," she says, sighing softly, the name souding so much like the other one.  He shudders in anger momentarily, anger at the comparison, but also anger at the quickness with which his body responds to her nearness.  He smells the air; testing her scent.  A red rage envolpes him when he detects desire, anger, power, assuredness, exhaustion,brutal sorrow and determination.

            But no fear.

            Like a teleporting mutant he's on her, pressing her against the large oak in her front yard, her back hitting the bark with a meaty thump.

            His face is a millimeter away from hers, and he grabs her cheeks in his hand, pinching just on this side of rough.

            "Say it again."

            She looks at him askance, her fingers gripping her sword, the tip of the blade hovering dangerously between his legs.

            "What?" she hisses at him.

            "Say my name," he grunts out, pressing up against her, heedless of the sword.  Her breath begins to quicken, her heartbeat speeding up under her skin.  He feels it, and leeches himself to her, no space between their bodies.

            "Get. Off. Me," she spits out, raising the sword so it barely touches his crotch.

            He grips her head tighter, and bangs it into the tree.  She whimpers slightly, but fixes her face in a fierce scowl.  "You wanna test me?" she says, daring him.

            "No.  I want you to say my name," he answers, his mouth hovering over hers again, and for just a blink of time, if she closes her eyes, the demon disappears, and her lost love is there.  

            Her hand holding the sword wavers, and she hesitates, smelling Angel, tasting Angel, but looking into the eyes of Angelus.

            And in that second, she doesn't care anymore, and the overwhelming tide of rage and crippling pain drowns her, and god damn it, she obeys him, and says it.

            "Angelus."

            His lips are on hers in a second, and she's sinking into the maelstrom that her love life became the night of her seventeenth birthday.

            He mauls her, teeth pulling at her lips, tounge penatrating her mouth, so reminiscent of that other night, and she tries not to cry, because he feels just the same.

            She spreads her legs without thinking, the metal of the sword clattering against the ground as it falls from her limp grasp.

            He plants his knee there, pushing her legs further apart, and threads the fingers of one hand in the strands of her hair, pulling them tight.  She gasps, and fights him, just for a minute, and then the hand grasping her face drops down lower, dragging her skirt out of the way, and she freezes, her gasp of anger and humiliation turning to a moan of want and passion.

            He grins against her mouth, fangs elongating.

            His fingers do their work quickly, the heat and moisture radiating from her core helping him complete his mission in a matter of seconds.

            A scream rips out of her throat, and she clamps her teeth down on his shoulder, the cloth of his wool coat absorbing her cry of release.

            The instant she figures out what just happened, he's on his back on the grass, and the sharp blade is pointed at his neck again, his true face retreating behind the handsome mask he wears.

            "This is not over," she tells him, voice shaking, fury and embarassment smacking him in the face like physical blows from her.

            "You seem pretty over to me," he teases, and slaps a hand to his cheek when the blood starts to flow down his chin.  

            She holds the sword with two hands now, his blood dripping off the tip.

            "You come near me or my friends again, I will cut you.  Maybe a little lower."

            And she's gone, skirt swishing behind her, the front door slamming shut.

            He sits up slowly, licking the blood from his face off his fingers.

            Dawn is coming, the knife edge of night blurring and shifting at the horizon, pink rays and yellow streaks beginning to taint the blue of the pre-morning heavens.

            Angelus stands, dusting off the back of his coat, and brushing a hand through his hair.

            He walks back down the sidewalk, not looking back.  The side of his mouth quirks upwards slightly; she's watching him from the window, and his smile widens as the tiny sound of sobs reaches his ears.

            Intimidation is the name of the game.

            Despite what she smells like, or what she says, she played along with him just fine.

            He quickens his pace, the mansion in sight, and he slips inside just as the bright shine of day bursts over the line where land meets sky. 

            A shriek of joy greets him, and a cry of "Daddy's home!"

            The feral grin replaces his half smile, and he takes Dru by the hand, retreating to his bedroom, as shadows begin to creep across the stone floor.

"I Think I'm Paranoid"

You can look, but you can't touch 

I don't think I like you much 

Heaven knows what a girl can do 

Heaven knows what you've got to prove 

I think I'm paranoid 

And complicated 

I think I'm paranoid 

Manipulate it 

[Chorus:]

Bend me, break me 

Anyway you need me 

All I want is you 

Bend me, break me 

Breaking down is easy 

All I want is you 

I fall down just to give you a thrill 

Prop me up with another pill 

If I should fail, if I should fold 

I nailed my faith to the sticking pole 

I think I'm paranoid 

Manipulate it 

I think I'm paranoid 

And complicated 

[Chorus:]

Paranoid 

I think I'm paranoid 

[Chorus:]

Steal me, deal me, anyway you heal me 

Maim me, tame me, you can never change me 

Love me, like me, come ahead and fight me 

Please me, tease me, go ahead and leave me 

Bend me 

Break me 

Anyway you need me 

As long as I want you baby it's all right 

Bend me 

Break me 

Any way you need me 

As long as I want you baby it's all right.


End file.
